Japan regions · Regions in Japan

Regions in Japan

Japan is conventionally divided into nine regions, listed here from north to south:

Regions of Japan

Hokkaido
Northernmost island and snowy frontier. Famous for its wide open spaces and cold winters.

Tohoku (Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Miyagi, Yamagata, Fukushima)
Largely rural north-east part of the main island Honshu, best known for seafood, skiing and hot springs.

Kanto (Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa)
Coastal plain of Honshu, includes the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama.

Chubu (Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Nagano, Shizuoka, Aichi, Gifu)
Mountainous middle region of Honshu, dominated by the Japan Alps and Japan's fourth-largest city Nagoya.

Kansai (Shiga, Mie, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Wakayama, Hyogo)
Western region of Honshu, ancient capital of culture and commerce, including the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kobe.

Chugoku (Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi)
South-westernmost Honshu, a rural region best known for the cities of Hiroshima and Okayama.

Shikoku (Kagawa, Ehime, Tokushima, Kochi)
Smallest of the four main islands, a destination for Buddhist pilgrims, and Japan's best white-water rafting.

Kyushu (Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Oita, Kumamoto, Miyazaki, Kagoshima)
Southernmost of the four main islands, birthplace of Japanese civilization; largest cities Fukuoka and Kitakyushu.

Okinawa
Semi-tropical southern island chain reaching out toward Taiwan; formerly the independent Ryukyu Kingdom until it was annexed by Japan in 1879, its traditional customs and architecture are significantly different from the rest of Japan.

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Japan Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

Regions in Japan

Regions in Japan

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